HitsuKarin  Journey
by writingISmyART
Summary: Toshiro has been sneaking off to the World of the Living for 5 years now without any problems. But when Karin twists her ankle, Toshiro is finding it hard to leave her. And even worse - he's finding that maybe the reason he can't leave her is because...


Bleach OneShot: Toshiro & Karin

_"Everything _feels normal when it's just you… a soccer ball… and a good friend…"  
- Unknown Author

_42… 43… 44… _

Karin gave the soccer ball a high bump into the air with her knee, letting it come down into her hands. For about the billionth time in the last half hour, she looked around the soccer field to find it empty.

She rolled her eyes and continued. _45… 46… 47… _

He was late again. She really shouldn't have been surprised by this by now. He was always late. They always met on the second Saturday of every month. The soccer field at 8 pm – twilight. That's the way it had been for nearly 5 years now.

And he was always late.

_51… 52… 53… _

This kind of stuff was rhythmic. Easy. Perfectly timed. Not like him. He was complicated. Haphazard. Irritating, if nothing else.

She let the ball drop to the ground and kicked it hard. It went straight into the goal only 20 feet from her. She was lucky she had held back. If she had let her emotions run wild, the ball probably would have burned a hole through the net.

Ugh! Why did she even bother showing up on time when she _knew _he was going to be late? It was late fall. No snow yet, but it was chilly out. Especially when the sun was going down. She zipped up the zipper of the solid red hoodie she was wearing, muttering unhappily about the cold.

She pushed up the sleeve of her hoodie to check the time - _yeah, like she hadn't just done that a billion times too. _He was officially half an hour past getting his ass kicked. Cursing his name again, Karin fixed her sleeve and headed over to the goal to retrieve her ball.

As she was untangling the ball from the back netting of the soccer goal, Karin felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "You're late," she spat to seemingly no one.

Toshiro dropped down from a nearby tree. "I was busy," was his normal answer. He pocketed his hollow-pager and started walking over to Karin, hands shoved in his jean pockets, eyes closed. Casual as ever.

Karin picked up her ball and hurled it at him with everything she had. But of course, Toshiro didn't even have to open his eyes to catch the ball in one hand. _Bastard… _Karin thought acidly.

"What's the matter, Karin?" he was totally messing with her now. It was one of his favorite past times – torment the human. "You don't look happy to see me…" he said, offering her the soccer ball in his outstretched hand.

"How the hell would you know?" she snapped, snatching the ball from him angrily, "You have yet to even open your eyes, much less look at me."

Toshiro did both. He opened his eyes and looked straight at Karin, catching her up in his intense turquoise gaze. Karin swallowed the lump that rose in her throat and shook her head. _Come on Karin! _she was now snapping at herself, _Get focused! You have a game to play! _

"Well, come on," she told him, heading out for the center of the field, "I'm looking forward to making you regret showing up _half an hour late." _

"What concept do I have of time?" Toshiro shrugged, returning his hands to his pockets and following after her, "I show up when I do. Be glad I come at all."

Karin was silent for a moment. She glanced at Toshiro out of the corner of her eye, feeling a question bubble up and out of her mouth before she could stop it, "Aren't you cold?"

Toshiro closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't get cold," he answered – though he could certainly see how she would be concerned with him in just his usual black golf shirt and jeans – "Ice and cold are kind of my thing, after all." _Kind of my thing? _he thought inwardly to himself, _Oh wow. I've been spending way too much time around humans. _

"Whatever then," Karin shrugged and turned.

The two of them were standing face to face on either side of the halfway line. Toshiro opened his eyes and took his hands out of his pockets. He used to be able to beat Karin with his hands in his jeans the entire time, but not so much lately. Adolescence had certainly improved her soccer skills, if nothing else.

"Hey," Karin suddenly noticed something. She raised a hand up to her own forehead, then to Toshiro's and smiled. "Check it out!" she exclaimed, "You're finally taller than me!"

Toshiro brushed her hand away with his arm. "Knock it off, Karin," he told her, "You're not going to distract me."

"I was being serious, you big jerk," she set the ball down between them and they both crouched slightly in preparation, "You're like a whole two inches taller than me."

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her. "What? You didn't honestly expect you would grow up and become a teenager and I'd stay the same height did you?" he asked, quizzically.

Karin didn't answer, but her expression clearly portrayed that yes, she had thought that was probably the most likely possibility. She quickly started the game before he could comment on the expression though. "One…" she counted.

"Two…" he murmured, irritated and planning to revisit the height subject later on.

"Three!" they shouted together.

And so the game began.

It was a simple Zico move.

The game was almost over. Karin and Toshiro were at a tie game of 4 to 4. With them, it meant they had been battling back and forth for over two hours.

Toshiro was the one who tried to pull the Zico move. He used his left foot to control the ball, then rotated his body around and swung his other foot towards the ball.

Karin took advantage of this move to try stealing the ball from Toshiro. Somehow – _the 'how' part completely unknown to either of them _– their feet got tangled and they both went crashing to the ground.

"Ow…" Toshiro complained uncharacteristically. But whatever. Play like a human, get hurt like a human, complain like a human, right?

Karin's eyes, which had closed reflexively as they had fallen, blinked themselves open little by little. For some reason her face felt about 10 degrees cooler than it had a moment ago… And it was no wonder. When she got her eyes open, she found Toshiro face barely an inch from hers. His breath was cold and minty and tickled her face. She noticed he hadn't yet opened his own eyes. Which was good – it gave her a moment to get her bright red face under control.

Toshiro opened his eyes too soon and found himself laying on top of Karin. Carefully he placed his hands on either side of her head so he could lift himself off of her. "Hey," he tried to remain casual, but found it a little difficult in such an awkward situation, "You all right?"

Karin, on the other hand, did what she always did when she was nervous. She lashed out. "I will be once you get off of me," she snapped.

"Fair enough," he carefully maneuvered himself up and off of her, taking a seat on the ground to the left of her. He was already dirty by now… Would a couple more minutes in the dirt really kill him?

As soon as he was clear and off of her, Karin sat up so fast it made her head spin. She placed a hand on her throbbing forehead, psychically kicking herself over and over again for pulling such a stupid move in the first place.

"Ugh… 'Ow' is right…" Karin groaned, agreeing with Toshiro's earlier comment. She waited a moment for her head to stop throbbing then tried to stand. The key word being 'tried', since she didn't even get up all the way before she fell over again.

Only this time, when she fell, Toshiro was there to catch her, rather than land on her.

"What the hell happened?" Toshiro helped her stand up, but didn't let go of her. His voice was apprehensive and maybe even a little… worried?

Karin smiled a little at the thought of ice cold Toshiro being worried about her, but the smile quickly disappeared when the pain of her right ankle came into focus. "Oh _great," _she hissed painfully, "My ankle's twisted."

"So?" Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her, still not letting go knowing she couldn't stand solidly. "Isn't your dad a doctor?" he asked.

"Yeah…" Karin carefully tried to put some weight on her right foot, but she couldn't. She had seriously _fucked up _her ankle. "But this means he's going to find out," she murmured unhappily.

Toshiro continued to keep a raised eyebrow and a puzzles expression on his face, "Find out what?"

Karin sighed, "That I've been sneaking out to see you once a month."

"What?" Toshiro found himself taken aback by this little bit of information, "Karin, we've been doing this for _five years. _You mean to tell me you kept this whole thing a secret for _that long?"_

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" she snapped at him. She was in too much pain to tolerate his attitude right now. But then again, when did she ever? She turned on a light and sarcastic tone, " 'Oh, hey dad… I know it's late, but can I go play soccer for a couple hours in the dark with a Soul Reaper friend of mine?' " she looked at Toshiro with a blank face and continued sarcasm, "Yeah, because that would go over _so well." _

Toshiro moved around Karin and scooped her up off the ground, bridal style. "No better than how well it's going to go over with the added negative of you being injured," he replied, starting to cross the field.

Just because Toshiro was two inches taller than her, didn't mean Karin expected him to be any stronger than her, but he easily carried her as if she weighed no more than a bag of apples or something. Then again, now that she thought about it, she realized it was kind of foolish for her to think a Soul Reaper _wouldn't _be strong enough to carry her – them being able to hold their own against hollows and all that.

There was another thing she realized now that she was thinking about it. Toshiro was planning to carry her all the way home… to her father…

Well, if she showed up at the house by herself with a twisted ankle she could easily make up something, like needing to take a walk and slipping on the curb. But if Toshiro tagged along she was screwed. And imagining how her dad would react after finding out she had been sneaking out for years to meet up with a boy at night did not appeal to her.

"Gah!" she exclaimed suddenly, but Toshiro didn't even flinch. She started squirming around, trying to get out of his hold. "Let me go!" she ordered, "Put me down!"

"Are you crazy?" Toshiro asked in all seriousness. "You can't even stand," he reminded her, "And for all we know, you could have a concussion as well."

"I don't care!" still she squirmed, pushing her hands against Toshiro's chest in the hopes to get out of his arms… and finding herself slightly distracted by how muscular he was nowadays. "Put me down!" she repeated, "I can make it fine on my own!"

Toshiro shook his head. "You're so _stubborn!" _he snapped, "Just like your brother!"

"Shut up," she snapped back. She wasn't giving up on being put down just yet, but she would gladly take a moment to clock him upside his head if he insulted her brother again.

"Fine," he retorted, "But I'm not putting you down, so get over it."

By this time they were stepping out of the brightly lit area of the soccer field. Karin glanced over Toshiro's shoulder, back to the dirt field and saw a small object on the left side of the field that they were leaving behind. "My ball!" she cried out like a two-year-old.

"I'll come back and get it later," Toshiro assured her.

"But…" Karin glance back and forth between Toshiro's emotionless face and the speck that was her ball growing smaller and smaller by the second, "But what if someone steals it?"

Toshiro let out an irritated _huff. _Karin was getting to be a pain in his ass, and in his arms. "No one's going to steal your ball," he told her, "We're the only two who use the field this late."

"Well this is just _fantastic," _Karin crossed her arms and pouted – still on her whole two-year-old state. The sarcasm that came dripping off her words made Toshiro smirk slightly, but not enough for her to notice. "Now I'm _bruised, broken, _bringing home a strange _boy _and leaving my favorite _ball _to be stolen."

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her, "Who're you calling a 'strange boy'?"

"You, moron," Karin muttered, refusing to look at him. "This is the worst day of my life…" she grumbled.

"Worst day of your life?" Toshiro repeated, just to clarify that that's what he heard come out of her mouth, "Well, I have half a mind to be offended by that comment."

"Shut up," Karin snapped, (wow she needed more comebacks), feeling nervous and uneasy more than angry, "You know I didn't mean you."

Toshiro stepped onto the road that wound along at the top of the hill next to the soccer field and started heading down the direction of Karin's home, his shoes making a light _tap tap _noise that echoed in the silence and emptiness around them. "Do I?" he asked seriously.

Karin finally looked up at him. There were those eyes of his again. Catching her up in intense turquoise. "Well… I don't," she snapped, again more nervous than actually angry, "Mean you, that is. I don't mean you. Like, as in, I don't mean seeing you is part of the worst day of my life. I mean everything _but _seeing you is the worst day of my life." Great. She was babbling now? _Shut up, Karin! _

"All right…" that same slight smirk brushed across Toshiro's lips for a moment, then disappeared. But Karin caught it this time, and it made her smile a little.

"Oh! Toshiro, stop for a second!" Karin looked around excitedly. She had just realized how far they had gotten from the field. And it was a good thing too. Another few feet and they wouldn't be exactly where she wanted them to be. "Do you remember?" she asked him, "Do you know where we are?"

Toshiro looked around for the sake of looking around. Of course he knew where they were. He'd known before they even got up here. He knew this is where they would end up the instant he stepped onto the road. And he also knew Karin was just trying to change the subject, but he let her.

"Yeah," he sighed, "Yeah, I remember." _Sort of. _

It was the best place to see the sky. The section on the stretch of road alongside the hill that opened up to the heavens at sunset. It was far past that time, and he didn't have the heart to tell Karin that the reason he was always late was because he waited here for the sun to set before he went to meet her on the soccer field.

There was one thing he couldn't remember though. Back before he had met Karin, he used to come here to reflect on memories. More often than not, childhood memories of Momo. He never did that anymore. Now when he came to this spot his thoughts were focused on one person and one person alone. And so, he couldn't remember the times when he had waited here thinking of anyone else.

Toshiro glanced at Karin. She was staring out at the dark sky, her black eyes full of stars. He sighed and shifted his arms under her a little, "Come on… We better get you home…"

"No, Toshiro, wait," Karin clenched some of his shirt in her hand, but her eyes remained on the raven colored sky, "I just… Can we stay for a few more minutes?"

Toshiro blinked. It was such a surprise for someone to just call him by his name. Either people knew him well enough to poke fun at him with nicknames, or they didn't know him at all and called him Hitsugaya or Captain Hitsugaya. There were a few exceptions to these two general groups, but not many. "Um…" for some reason he felt his cheeks starting to burn, "…you're kind of heavy."

Nice. Way to go ruining the moment, Toshiro. Idiot.

"I am not!" Karin snapped, whirling her head to face him, "And besides, I told you to put me down a long ass time ago!"

"And I told you I wasn't going to," Toshiro argued, relieved that the strange burning was going away, "But that doesn't mean I want to stand around holding you out in the cold all night."

Karin furrowed her eyebrows and glared at him angrily, "I thought you didn't _get _cold."

"I don't!" he snapped back at her, "It's you I'm fucking worried about! You're going to get sick!" Oh crap. He did _not _just say that. Toshiro closed his mouth and quickly looked away from Karin. The burning returned.

"You're…" Karin was no longer angry. All her features softened, and she found herself staring at Toshiro with a new wonder. "You're worried about me?" she asked.

Toshiro didn't answer. He continued to look out over the dark sky pretending to do something pointless, like count stars or whatever. The burning spread down his cheeks, growing. He knew what it was now. He was blushing. How ridiculous was that?

Karin's hand released Toshiro's clothing and reached up in front of her face. His peripherals caught the movement, and he slowly turned his head back to see what she was doing.

"Oh… my…" Karin whispered, her eyes on her hand and the drip of water resting on one of her fingers. She looked up, so Toshiro did as well.

Snow. It was snowing. Millions of tiny white flakes were coming down on them, growing denser and denser by the minute, and seeming to appear out of no where. They fell on Karin's warm hand and melted instantly, but built up on top of Toshiro such to the point that he had to shake his shoulders to knock the piles off.

"It's snowing!" Karin said to Toshiro wondrously. She tipped her head back in his arms and closed her eyes. Letting the snow land and melt on her face. Then she opened her mouth and caught a few with her tongue. "Go on, try it," she brought her head back up to look at him.

"Why?" he asked – wanting to know the point of such an action.

Karin had to stifle a giggle at the curiosity on Toshiro's face at that moment. "Because it's fun," she told him, "Just try it. You'll see."

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her. Did she honestly think he was going to stick his tongue out and catch snowflakes? How disgusting... How foolish… How…

He sighed and tipped his head back. The snow didn't melt on his face like it did on Karin's. Each individual snowflake pricked his face like a tiny pin where it rested on his skin.

"Tongue too," Karin reminded him.

He rolled his eyes, hoping Karin could see it, even though his head was back. Very slowly, he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out. He caught three snowflakes, then clammed up and brought his head back up. "There," he stated blankly.

"And…?" she pressed, "How was it?"

"Cold," he replied flatly, "And wet. And…" He stopped when he saw the hurt creeping up in Karin's expression. Damnit all. Since when did he have a conscience? "It was nice," he murmured, trying to use a lighter tone and only slightly succeeding.

Karin smiled at him, "I'm glad you liked it."

_I didn't say I liked it… _he thought. He opened his mouth to say it too, but was cut off by Karin's shuddering.

And with good reason. Toshiro hadn't noticed with the snow distraction, but Karin had been steadily growing colder and stiffer in his arms. Now she was shaking with the shivers of being wet from snow and chilly from the temperature.

"All right," Toshiro started walking again, "Time to get you home."

Karin's teeth chattered in her mouth as she spoke. "O-k-k-k-a-y," she agreed, huddling herself into a tight little ball against Toshiro's chest. In retrospect, wearing black skinny jeans, a white T-Shirt, a red hoodie and red and white Converse to go play soccer in the late fall evening had probably not been the best idea in the first place. The fact that she now had a twisted ankle and it had started snowing now only affirmed the bad idea.

"H-e-y-y-y… T-o-s-s-s-h-h-h-i-r-r-r-o-o-o?" Karin stuttered against his black T-Shirt.

Toshiro pressed forward faster. Not exactly running, but close enough. "What is it?" he replied.

"D-D-D-o-o-o y-y-y-o-u-u-u l-l-l-i-k-k-k-e h-o-t-t-t c-c-h-h-o-c-c-c-o-l-a-t-t-t-e?" she asked shakily. The cold wasn't anything serious – certainly nothing she could die from, since they only had about four more blocks before they got to her house, but man did her chattering teeth make it hard to speak!

"Um…" Toshiro hesitated. He glanced down at Karin for a moment then back up to the street they were heading down. "Yeah, I guess," he replied.

"G-G-G-r-r-r-e-a-t-t-t…" Karin murmured, "M-M-M-y-y-y d-d-d-a-d-d-d m-m-m-a-k-k-k-e-s-s-s t-h-h-e b-b-b-e-s-s-s-t-t-t h-o-t-t-t c-c-h-h-o-c-c-c-o-l-a-t-t-t-e…"

"Oh, good," Toshiro commented sarcastically. He didn't like listening to Karin stuttering, so he decided to talk as much as possible so she wouldn't have the opportunity to. "Something for your father to weaponize against me when he finds out about all your sneaking out."

"Hmm…" was Karin's half-hearted laughter.

The last block and a half was a silent one. Karin didn't speak again, but her shuddering didn't stop. As Toshiro closed in on her house, he gently shook her. "Karin," he called, shaking a little harder, "Karin, come on, wake up… We're at your house." He shifted her around and reached a hand out to rapidly tap the doorbell.

It was Ichigo who got to the door first. Bright orange bed-head hair, disheveled pajamas and all. He looked very cross for a moment – no doubt from being woken up in the middle of the night – but his face softened into worry when he saw Karin in Toshiro's arms.

"Hey Ichigo," Toshiro greeted him. He didn't even bother to wait to be invited in, he walked right in, feeling the rush of indoor heating his him in waves. "Is your dad up?" he asked, glancing around, "Karin's twisted her ankle, and now she's freezing too."

"Um, yeah… hold on a sec, okay?" Ichigo started heading down the hallway, speaking over his shoulder as he went, "I'll go get him."

Ichigo left Toshiro holding Karin and standing awkwardly in the hallway for a good 10 minutes before he and his dad returned with Yuzu in tow. Ichigo came over to them and reached his hands under Karin, trying to take her from Toshiro, but he couldn't.

"No!" she whimpered. She was only halfway conscious, and probably had no idea what she was doing. She held tight to Toshiro's shirt, squirming away from Ichigo and back into the ball she had been in Toshiro's arms.

Toshiro rolled his eyes and collected her back up into his arms. _Of all the irony… _he thought, then looked over at Ichigo, "Where do you want her?"

The morning sun came peering through the blinds of the window next to Karin. She blinked herself awake. With a groan she turned away from the bright light of the window.

_What the…? _Karin got her droopy eyelids opened, then had to rub them a couple times with her fists before she could believe what she was seeing in front of her wasn't a dream.

Toshiro, looking crumpled and uncomfortable, was tucked up into one of the clinic's waiting room chairs, passed out and covered with one of the white blankets from another Hospital bed. She sat up and looked at his sleeping face. He was so calm when he slept. It was nothing like that cold aura he tried to instill around him when he was awake. It was a softer kind of cold. Like… newly fallen snow.

Snow? Karin slowly started to pick up the pieces of her memories from the night before. She and Toshiro had met to play soccer as usual… then there was the accident… her ankle was twisted… he carried her… the road… the snow… something about hot chocolate… then nothing.

She assumed he had brought her home, since that's where she was now. She looked around, keeping a yawn quiet so as not to wake Toshiro. There was one other patient in the row of beds on the other side of the room. Some old lady who came to them yesterday complaining of chest pains, but she was heavily sedated, so Karin didn't worry about her.

Karin pushed the covers off of her. Her ankle was wrapped in fabric gauze and hurt a little, but not much. That kind of sucked. It meant her dad had put her on pain meds, which she didn't like on account of they made her woozy. She lifted her arm, where she found an IV stuck into her forearm. With a steady and practiced hand, she pulled the IV out and placed the tube on the stand with the bag.

She needed to get up and out of this bed. She needed to be up and moving around and doing stuff. And she for damn sure needed to get out of this flimsy Hospital gown and into some real clothes.

It was a rough walk out of the clinic. She was limping pretty badly as she made her way out of the clinic and up to her room, being careful not to wake anyone else up. If she had had a rough night getting injured, she knew they had had an even rougher night taking care of her. She wanted her family to sleep.

When she got into her room safely and closed the door she limped over to her closet. With all the broken bones her tomboy personality had earned her over the years, getting dressed around a sprained ankle was no big deal. But first… a shower!

Karin enjoyed a good 30 minute shower, even thought 10 of those minutes were spend un-wrapping and re-wrapping her ankle before she got in and after she got out. Eventually, she was dried off and standing in front of her closet, picking what to wearing.

She decided on a cream colored shirt with two stalks of dark green bamboo stretching from the bottom up, and a matching dark green hoodie. She was big into the hoodies lately, they were both comfortable and boyish. The pants were a little harder, since all she had clean were a pair of skinny jeans with wear-and-tear patches all over them. The patches weren't so bad, but getting the skinny jeans on over her ankle proved to be a little more difficult.

When she was fully clothed, she snuck across the hall and popped back into the bathroom to brush her hair and teeth. As she was sneaking back to her room a few moments later, she paused out in the hallway and crept down to the hallway closet.

In the hallway closet, Karin quickly located a box on one of the lower shelves labeled _Ichigo Old. _She smiled mischievously as she tugged off the packing tape.

"Finally," was the first thing Toshiro heard when he woke up.

Toshiro blinked, pulling himself to consciousness. The throbbing in his temples told him he had slept way too long, and his aching muscles told him this long sleep had been conducted in an uncomfortable metal chair. The instant his eyes were open all the way, he knew exactly where he was, what he was doing there and whose voice that was.

"Well, you look better," he commented, stretching himself out and hearing his bones crack uncomfortably.

"You look like shit," Karin responded. She was sitting on her now made Hospital bed, reading a magazine and keeping her wrapped up foot elevated on a large pillow. She smirked and set the magazine down on the bed, then lifted her leg and turned her body so she could face him with both legs dangling off the cot.

"Thanks," Toshiro replied sarcastically. He stood and stretched his arms up to the ceiling. "Ugh," his muscles were totally sore from carrying her around yesterday. "Hm… So where's the family?" he asked, observing that none of them were in the clinic.

"Upstairs having lunch," Karin informed him. She hopped of the bed and hobbled down to the end of it, where there was a semi-large box on the floor. "You have great timing," she complimented, carefully stooping down to pick up the box, "Now we can get out of here without them noticing." She placed the box on the bed and opened it up.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her quizzically. "Get out of here…?" he wondered if perhaps he wasn't yet fully awake, "Karin, what are you talking about?"

"I'll explain after you get ready," she told him. She pulled out a boy's turquoise T-Shirt and tossed it at him. "Here, change," she ordered.

Toshiro was never one to follow orders, but he did then. His shirt was dirty with soccer field mud and brittle from getting soaked with snow and then letting it dry. The piece of warm, clean cotton he caught in his hand looked extremely appealing. Not really caring that Karin was only about four feet from him; he grabbed the bottom of his dirty shirt and pulled it off over his head.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Karin snapped, stopping Toshiro before he could get the T-Shirt on. She leaned down and pulled a bucket of fresh warm water out. It sloshed around as she lifted it up, but luckily none of it spilled.

"Here," she went around him and set it on the empty chair he had slept in. "We don't have time for you to take a shower, but you can at least clean up a bit," she informed him, hobbling back to the box. She pulled out a pair of black dress pants, a pair of boxers, two socks and a black vest to go over his T-Shirt, then turned back to him and tossed the pile of clothes at him.

"Um…" Toshiro looked back and forth between the clothes and Karin. Maybe he didn't care about changing shirts in front of her but…

Karin rolled her eyes and went over to the wall by the bed. She grabbed a white curtain Toshiro hadn't noticed before and pulled it along a track on the ceiling to separate them. He hesitated for a moment then reached for the clean rag soaking in the water.

It took Toshiro roughly 11 minutes to clean and change. When he finally pulled the curtain back, he was still futzing with his hair. There was some mud in it, but it pretty much came out after he raked his hands through it a couple times.

"All right, now what was the point of that?" he asked, "Something to do with that 'getting out of here' subject you mentioned before, I assume."

Karin nodded. She was sitting on the edge of the Hospital bed pulling on a pair of cream-colored boots to go with her shirt, wincing slightly when she had to pull the one on over her hurt ankle. "I'm going to take you out," she told him.

"Out?" Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her skeptically.

"Yes," Karin hopped down, being careful not to put too much weight on her hurt ankle, then turned back to the Hospital bed and the cardboard box that was still waiting on the bed, "I'm taking you out for the day to thank you for what you did yesterday." She dug both hands into the box and pulled out a nice thick and warm white men's blazer. She turned on her good foot and tossed the jacket to him.

Toshiro caught it, and in being too preoccupied trying to divulge information from Karin about their mysterious outing, started pulling it on subconsciously. "To thank me…?" he murmured.

"Yep…" she pulled a pair of white boots with black laces from the box and tossed them on the floor in front of Toshiro. "Here, put those on," she told him, reaching into the box for another item, "I can't go get your shoes without my family seeing me, and besides, you don't want to be walking around outside in anything but boots. It snowed a lot last night, but at least the roads and sidewalks-"

"Karin!"

Karin stopped talking and turned to look at Toshiro, confused, "What?"

Oh great. Her innocent look. Toshiro reached a hand up to rub the back of his neck, flitting his eyes over to the wall so he wouldn't have to look her straight in the eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm busy today?" he asked rhetorically, and with a slight snap in his tone, "I can't just decided to take a day off whenever I feel like. I have lots of stuff to do."

"But you stayed," Karin reclaimed his attention. His eyes moved back to her face, but his hand stayed resting on the back of his neck. "You stayed," she explained, "You carried me all the way home last night, and you stayed with me – even though it meant sleeping in an uncomfortable metal chair and skipping over your responsibilities for the night."

Toshiro's hand came off his neck, so he could wave it in the air a little as he spoke. "All the more reason I need to get back to work," he tried to reason with her.

"Toshiro," there she did it again. The thing with his name that made his cheeks start to burn. She stepped forward and lifted a nice black scarf over his head, then flipped one side over his shoulder to hang down his back. "I want to thank you, okay?" she told him, "Maybe that's a little mushy for my personality, but it's what I want to do." She suddenly grabbed the front of his shirt and turned on her threatening voice, "Now, you can either come quietly or I can drag you, but you _are going." _

She let go of his shirt and Toshiro let out an exhausted sigh. This girl was going to be the death of him.

Footsteps echoed out in the hallway. Oh crap! Her family was coming!

"Let's go, Toshiro," Karin did her best half-limp, half-jog to the window on the other side of the bed, grabbing her warm black jacket and pulling it on over her hoodie.

"What? But-!" his eyes flicked to the door across the room, where the footsteps were steadily growing louder, then back to Karin, who was sliding open the window and vaulting herself through it. "Damnit all," he hissed under his breath. He grabbed the boots and awkwardly pulled them on while at the same time trying to get over to the window.

Up and out the window he went, just in time too. When he landed in a crouch outside the window, he was suddenly yanked backwards onto his butt. Karin's back was pressed up against the wall directly under the window, and now he was too. She raised a finger to her lips, warning him to be quiet as the voices suddenly started talking in the clinic room.

_"Where is she?"_

_"Look dad! The window's open!"_

_"What?"_

_"Toshiro's gone too!"_

_"WHAT?"_

_"Yuzu, you go check the house! I'm going to look around the rest of the clinic! Ichigo, you've got outside!"_

_"Dad, come on…"_

_"NOW ICHIGO!" _

There was some shuffling then Ichigo's bright orange head poked out the open window and looked up and down the street. Karin had to throw her hand over her mouth to keep herself from giggling at her dunce of a brother. Toshiro just looked at her like she was crazy.

After his brief look around, Ichigo pulled his head in and shut the window. "Come on," Karin whispered, grabbing Toshiro's wrist and tugging him along after her, "Stay low."

The two of them snuck away from the house. They ran for about a block, then Karin's foot started to bother her, and they slowed to a walk. She released his wrist when they were far enough away, and they continued their walk all the way to the train station with Karin laughing her head off and Toshiro just watching her do so.

"Where are we going, Karin?" Toshiro asked when they reached the train station. He looked around the small station bored and somewhat bewildered.

"Hm…" Karin looked up at the board of arrivals and departures thoughtfully, "I really don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"Where do I…?" Toshiro looked up at the board again then back down to Karin, "You're joking, right?"

Karin shook her head, "I am totally and completely one hundred percent serious." She smiled at him, "But since you're such a stick in the mud, I don't expect you to pick a place."

"I'm not a stick in the mud," Toshiro argued, "This is just childish… even for you."

"There you go again," Karin rolled her eyes and sighed at him, "You really need to lighten up. We're going on an adventure!" She paused, her face screwed together – thinking. "I've got it!" she announced, "We'll just hop on whatever train is leaving next, and take it wherever it goes!"

Toshiro's jaw dropped slightly. Was she still being serious?

From the way she looked back up at the board to scan the train departures, he guessed so. She suddenly grabbed his wrist again and started running. He would have put up more of a fuss, but he was too busy watching her feet. She was trying not to limp, but it was clear her ankle still hurt. If she kept going on like this it was likely to full on brake.

Before he knew it, Toshiro was on a train, standing in a crowded train car with a bunch of smelly passengers, headed god knows where.

The standing was okay. As long as Karin didn't put any weight on her foot, her ankle didn't hurt so much, but she did sort of wish she could sit down.

As if reading her thoughts, the train slowed, and two women sitting in front of Toshiro and Karin got up to get off. There was some pushing and shoving, and then pain. Lots of pain. Someone had knocked Karin's foot against one of the metal poles standing passengers held on to. Toshiro saw it, but he wasn't fast enough to do anything about it.

"Shit. Karin, are you all right?" he asked when the shoving had stopped and the train had started moving once again.

Karin tried to blow it off like it was no big deal. She remembered him being worried about her last night, and didn't want to worry him on their day out. "I-I'm fine," she said weakly, then straightened herself up and put on a brave face, "Yeah. There. See? All better."

Unfortunately, two people – a big burly man, and a simple woman – had taken the seats they were going to sit in. Toshiro's jaw tightened and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He narrowed his eyes at the two passengers and he waited until they saw him glaring before he spoke. "Move," he ordered.

A chill swept through the train car. The two frightened passengers immediately and got up, shying away from Toshiro's ice cold, murderous look. The rest of the crowd also seemed to move a couple inches back.

His gaze returned to blank and bored in an instant when he faced Karin. "Sit," he ordered, but a lot less scary this time.

"O-Okay…" Karin wasn't afraid of him, but she didn't necessarily want to piss him off either. She took a seat in one of the empty seats.

Toshiro didn't sit next to her. He sat on the floor. Well, knelt on the floor. Carefully, he pulled off Karin's boot. Karin fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat from all the people watching the two of them, but she didn't dare move her foot while he was messing with it.

Toshiro undid the gauze wrapping and inspected Karin's foot. It was red and swelling a little. Even a little purplish in some areas, and he guessed it hurt like hell. He closed his eyes and murmured a quiet chant, taking a deep breath, and exhaling ice cold air onto her foot to cool it and keep it from swelling any worse. After he did this two more times, he replaced the gauze perfectly and slipped her boot back on.

"You know, if you keep helping me like this I'm never gonna catch up to thanking you," Karin mentioned as he got up and brushed the dirt from the train floor off his pants.

"Yes well…" Toshiro sat next to her, closing his eyes and folding his arms over his chest, "Trying to thank me with a day out on the town the day after you twist your ankle was probably not the best idea."

Karin sighed sharply. "Probably not," she murmured, sounding disappointed.

Toshiro opened one eyes to look over at her for a moment. This girl was hopeless. He closed his eyes again and unfolded his arms so he could put them behind his head and rest it against the train window behind them. There was silence for a couple minutes.

"So… Where is this train going, anyway?" he asked finally – not bothering to move at all.

"Hm," Karin looked around, but the crowd was so thick she could see any signs or anything inside the train, "Dunno. I forgot what tickets I bought said, and I can't see anything."

Toshiro huffed, slightly irritated. _"Spectacular," _he replied sarcastically.

Their train ride was a little under an hour. When they got off, Karin and Toshiro found themselves on a train platform outside a nice little city. Karin was too interested in the marketplace down the street from the platform to bother looking for the city's name, and Toshiro didn't really care enough to look either.

The two of them headed down the street. Toshiro was… surprised, to say the least, about how excited and well, _girly _Karin was being on their day out. She flitted around from shop to shop, inspecting the merchandise and trying her best to involve him in her fun.

At one point, the two of them ended up passing by a small stand selling hot chocolate.

"Ooo… I could totally go for some hot chocolate," Karin announced boyishly. Guess she was settling back into normal. She turned to head for the stand, but ended up tripping over a large stone hidden in the snow.

"Karin!" Toshiro shouted, reaching out for her.

He managed to catch her arm and pull her back before she could fall, but she still winced sharply at the pain in her ankle.

"You are just bound and determined to fuck your ankle up even worse today, aren't you?" Toshiro snapped at her. He wasn't angry, but his tone sort of came across that way.

"Ugh… you swear when you get worried," she replied, trying to snap as well, but not quite mustering a snap, "I've noticed that a couple times."

Toshiro's cheeks started to burn, despite the fact that it was only about 20 degrees Fahrenheit out. "I do not," he argued to make the burning go away.

"Yes you do," Karin got her snap back, "And I think… I need to sit down for a minute…"

Toshiro looked around. Lucky for them there was a bench only a couple feet from them. "Come on," he took her arm and carefully helped her over to the bench. "Here, stand by yourself for a second," he told her.

Karin steadied herself and watched as Toshiro cleared a section of snow off the bench using the sleeve of his jacket. The bench was still sort of wet, even with the snow brushed off, so Toshiro unbuttoned his blazer and pulled it off to lay it on the bench with the inside facing up so Karin had a dry place to sit.

"But, your coat-" she tried to argue as he helped her sit down, "You'll get-"

"Karin."

"Oh right," Karin caught herself, "I forgot. You don't _get _cold."

Toshiro stood near her, waiting faithfully. "How's your ankle?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"Hm?" Karin couldn't pull her attention from all the happy looking people purchasing hot cocoa from the stand a little ways away from them. "Oh, fine, fine," she assured him, "I just need a minute… Then I'll be… right back… to… normal…"

Toshiro followed her gaze to the hot cocoa stand. He took a deep breath then exhaled sharply – venting his frustration. Leave it to Karin to be thinking about _hot cocoa _when she was in the middle of recovering from a twisted ankle. He held his hand out, not believing what he was about to do.

"All right, fine," he seemed to be giving in to something, though Karin had yet to make any sort of demands, "Give me your wallet. I'll go get the stupid cocoa."

Karin grinned and pulled her black wallet-pouch from her coat pocket to hand over to him, "Thanks Toshiro."

"Whatever," he stuck his hands and her wallet into the pockets of his pants casually and started walking away. "Just stay put," he told her over his shoulder.

Karin saluted him, "Yes sir!"

Toshiro shook his head, allowing a slightly amused smirk to rest on his lips as he headed to the hot cocoa stand.

Much to Toshiro's displeasure, there was another person with Karin when he returned with two cups of hot cocoa. It was some jerk of a teenage boy, laying on the ground with a purple lump on his forehead the size of a baseball. Karin was standing over the boy, holding Toshiro's blazer and glaring at the guy lying face up in the snow.

"Do I even want to know?" Toshiro asked, coming up next to her. He handed her a cup of hot cocoa and she handed him the blazer.

"The creep tried to steal your blazer right from under me," Karin explained, "He even got a good grab at my butt."

Toshiro glanced at her lump on the guy's head briefly. "So… What? You hit him?" he asked, looking back to Karin.

"Um… sort of…" Karin murmured, raising the hot cocoa cup to her mouth.

Toshiro placed a hand on the cup before it got to her lips and lowered it in her hand, "Karin…"

Karin huffed. "I kneed him in the stomach," she gave in, "But him hitting his head on the bench was a total accident, I swear."

Toshiro removed his hand from her cup, and Karin took careful sips of the cocoa.

"Well," she said finally as she started to walk down the way they had been going 15 minutes ago – before she had even slipped on the stupid rock, "It's not as great as my dad's, but it's all right."

Toshiro stared down at the unconscious teen for another moment before turning to go catch up with Karin. As he turned though, he purposely kicked snow in the guy's face.

Their next incident with strangers happened about half an hour later. The two of them were cold and hungry, _(well, Karin was cold and hungry - Toshiro was just hungry), _and decided to stop into a small shop to get something to eat. There was about a 10 minute wait for a table, but they didn't mind, and Karin took advantage of this to leave Toshiro in line and go use the restroom.

As she made her way back from the bathroom, she was shocked to find three giggling girls about her age all over Toshiro. Figuratively and _literally _since one of them had her arm linked in his. The girls were all seriously trying to flirt with him, but he wasn't responding at all. He wasn't even looking at them, much less speaking to them.

"Ex-_cuse_ me," Karin marched up to the girl and Toshiro, who finally stopped staring at the wall and looked over at her. "I believe all three of you are in _my _spot, and on _my _friend," she snapped angrily.

"Oh dear," the girl hanging on Toshiro's arm feigned an apologetic voice, "We're _so sorry. _We didn't realize this lone cutie here hung around with trailer trash like you."

Karin's mouth gaped slightly. _"Trailer trash?" _her blood was seriously starting to boil, "Look who's talking. You're boobs look like they could fall out of your shirt if you took too deep a _breath." _She crossed her arms, trying to look more menacing, "In case you didn't notice, its _20 degrees out. _Only trash would wear next to nothing in the bitter cold."

Toshiro raised his eyebrows at Karin. _Look at her standing her ground, _he thought, slightly impressed.

"Tch," the girl scoffed, using a hand to flip her perfect black curls over her shoulder, "There's no reason to be rude, sweetheart. We all know you're just envious because you're flat as a board." The two other girls giggled, inching closer to Toshiro, who was looking more and more uncomfortable by the moment.

"What in the hell is there to envy about _you?" _Karin snapped, taking a step towards her, "You may have a fantastic body, but you have no dignity, no self worth, and a shitty personality.

"And you're obviously too arrogant for your own good, since you decided to pick a fight with _me," _she grabbed the girl's jaw with her hand, yanking the bitch closer to her, "Now I'm going to give you 5 seconds to get off of him and out of my sight before I kick your perfect little teeth into that loud ass mouth of yours."

Karin let the girl go, who just stood there staring for a moment. The other two friends moved around behind Toshiro to get to their friend. "Come on, Miyu," one of them urged, and the other followed with, "It's not worth it." They tugged at her arms, prying her away from Toshiro and out of the shop.

There was a moment of awed silence, then a chuckle.

Yep, a chuckle. A chuckle from the person one would least expect it from. Toshiro Hitsugaya.

Toshiro chuckled. Karin looked over at him in shock. He raised his hand up to his mouth, closing his eyes and starting to shudder as his chuckle turned into a full on laugh. He laughed for a good full minute before Karin interrupted him.

"What is so funny?" she demanded. She would have stomped her foot too, but the foot she usually stomped was currently out of commission with a twisted ankle.

"You… You…" he had to take a couple breaths before he could speak, and even then it came through broken chuckles, "You were… You tried to be all threatening…" He laughed a little more, then tried to speak again, "…and they… they were actually… scared of you…" He let out another small burst of laughter while Karin stared on, dumfounded.

"Oh… and… and…" he continued breathlessly between chuckles, "…that thing where you… you threatened to kick her… teeth in!" More laughter, "That was hilarious."

Karin folded her arm over her chest, waiting for Toshiro's laughing to stop. It didn't take long. He wasn't much of a laugher. The fact that he was laughing at all was really weird. Him actually sustaining a laugh would just be freaky.

"Are you done?" she snapped at him.

Toshiro continued to smile, he couldn't help it. "Yeah, I'm done," he told her, suppressing a last chuckle.

"Good," she replied. Out of no where, her fist came out and connected with his stomach. Pain-wise he barely noticed it, but it still forced him to hunch forward. "That was _not _funny," she practically snarled, pulling her fist back.

Toshiro straightened up. That stupid smile of his was still on his face. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had found a situation so hilarious. "It was so funny," he argued, "You saw those girls and your face was priceless. You were _so jealous." _

"I was _not _jealous!" she sounded appalled. Humiliated and appalled – if it was even possible to convey those two things through your tone at the same time. Like, how could he even _suggest _such a ridiculous idea?

She was so appalled in fact; she couldn't even look at him. She faced forward and crossed her arms. She would have just marched out of the shop entirely, but she was hungry and they were finally at the front of the line. So she settled for sulking angrily while they waited and Toshiro stood behind her, smirking away.

Besides ordering some Dango and tea, the two of them didn't speak. Toshiro's smirk softened, but it still didn't go away. He stared out the window next to them – waiting. He knew Karin couldn't keep silent forever. It just wasn't in her nature.

"All right, I was jealous," she admitted finally - _See? Just not in her nature. _- but she wasn't happy about it, as she so clearly conveyed with her folded arms and her inability too look at him.

Toshiro rest his chin on his hand, and his arm on the table. His expression conveyed he was smirking, though his mouth was straight. "You're a little too honest sometimes, Karin," he informed her quite matter-of-factly, "Especially when it comes to yourself."

"That's better than never being honest," Karin muttered, throwing a sideways glance at him.

Toshiro blinked. "When have I ever been dishonest?" he asked, confused.

"Well…" Karin turned to face him, unfolding her arms and waving them around as she spoke, "Maybe not dishonest… But you never open up. You never relax. You never take some time to just _be a teen." _

"I have long since passed being a teen," he reminded her.

"Oh, right…" Karin murmured, she lifted her head slightly to look at him with a somewhat confused, but mostly curious face, "How old are you, anyway?"

Toshiro removed his hand from holding up his chin and waved it at her a little. "Don't concern yourself with my age," he told her, "Because I won't tell you."

"And that's why everyone always calls you a little kid, Toshiro," Karin pointed out.

"As opposed to _actually _being a kid?" he asked snidely.

Karin's eyebrows knitted together in frustration – something Toshiro found to be quite an amusing reaction. "I'm sixteen!" she snapped, "I'm not a little kid!"

"You are to me," Toshiro mentioned.

A server came to their table and gave the two of them five sticks each – three Dango on each stick – along with some tea and a plate of amanatto.

Karin looked at the amanatto with a raised eyebrow then turned to the server, "Um… We didn't order this."

"Oh, I know," the server was probably only a year or two older than Karin, but her tone and actions were that of a shy 3-year-old. Karin frowned. It was clearly a flirting tactic. "It's just, well…" she continued, but now she was talking to Toshiro, "I heard you talking to those girls earlier in line… You mentioned you liked amanatto, but you didn't order any." She turned, heading away from their table with a small wave, "This one's on the house."

Karin glared at the server's back. She watched the woman enter the kitchen, then her face and the faces of two other severs crowded the small circle window on the kitchen entrance. That was three pairs of eyes… all on Toshiro…

"Hm," Toshiro had picked up an amanatto and popped it into his mouth. "Not bad," he commented after swallowing.

Karin yanked the plate away from him as he was reaching for another one. "Knock it off," she told him, "Never eat food given to you by strangers. It could kill you."

"No, accepting food from the people I _know _could kill me," he replied, reaching for the plate.

Again, Karin slid it out of his reach, "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Have you ever tried anything Orihime has made?" he asked in all manner of serious-ness.

Karin thought about this for a moment. She glanced over at the server girls with their noses still pressed up against window and sighed. Reluctantly, she pushed the plate back over to Toshiro, "Fine. Eat your stupid amanatto."

"I will," he stated flatly. He took another with a smirk. "Jealous," he murmured, popping it into his mouth.

"Shut up," she snapped, picking up a stick of Dango. She bit one of them off the stick and chewed angrily. After a large – and somewhat painful – swallow, Karin spoke again. "You… uh… really like amanatto, huh?" she observed as he reach for yet another.

"Yeah, they're my favorite," he replied, a smile tracing his lips for a few seconds before he placed the treat in his mouth.

Karin's jaw dropped. She probably should have been concerned about Toshiro seeing half-chewed Dango, but she wasn't. In fact, she didn't even notice her mouth was open until Toshiro had swallowed his amanatto and remarked on her surprised expression.

"What is it now?" he asked with a half-hearted sigh.

Her mouth snapped back up. She pointed her Dango stick – still with two Dango on it – at Toshiro. "That has to be the weirdest thing I've ever heard you say," she told him flatly.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her, "And why is that?"

"Because it was _normal," _she joked.

With a fleeting smile and a roll of his eyes, Toshiro picked up a stick of Dango. "Guess you're starting to rub off on me," he poked back, biting into one of the Dango.

"A frightening concept, I'm sure," Karin did her best Toshiro impression.

Toshiro continued munching on Dango. He hadn't noticed how hungry he was until the food was put in front of him, and now that it was, it felt like he may never stop eating.

"Ugh…"

He looked up. Karin's gaze was on the rest of the restaurant, so he followed it. There were some servers staring at them from the kitchen. He wondered how they could have the time to stand around like that when there was a bustling full house of customers, and a line of 5 or 6 more groups waiting by the door.

And besides that? Well… the girls.

Karin hadn't noticed it at all, but girls had been slowly collecting. He seemed to have that effect in the World of the Living. Girls were drawn to his detached and cold personality, his strange eyes and his white hair. Dating bad boys was apparently the new thing. Whatever. Toshiro could care less. He wasn't the kind to get involved with mortals.

Well, except Karin. But he didn't even know if she counted.

"Karin," he called her attention away from all his spying, giggling FanGirls. It took a moment, but she finally complied and looked at him. "What are your plans for the future?" he asked.

It was a random question to her, but a need-to-know question for him. He waited while she blinked and thought, then finally answered. "Oh… I don't know…" she wasn't sure what it was he wanted to know. I mean, _the future? _That could mean 12 years or 12 hours. She didn't know. "Probably a job involving sports, I guess," she finished lamely.

"Have you considered becoming a Soul Reaper? Like your brother?" he offered. Then regretted he had even opened his mouth. It was not his job to influence a mortal, _any mortal. _He had a slight worry that he may have been overstepping his boundaries.

"A Soul Reaper?" Karin asked, just to clarify she had heard him right. He nodded.

"Yeah, I thought about it," she admitted, "Well, more like daydreamed about it in Math class, you know? The idea popped into my head, and it's kind of an exciting one, but I didn't know just any human could sign up and be a Soul Reaper."

Toshiro caught and held her dark atramentous eyes. "Not any human," he informed her – his tone emotionless for the most part, but a little snappish – "Only an extraordinary one."

Karin's face started to go red. She swallowed and basically commanded herself to _knock it off _before it got deep enough for Toshiro to notice. "Oh wow," she teased, "Was that actually somewhat of a compliment?"

"Maybe," Toshiro replied flatly, taking another bite of Dango. Whatever had compelled him to laugh at Karin earlier was obviously gone, and he was back to be cold and emotionless.

Karin sipped her tea awkwardly. She was trying her very best to ignore the girls in the restaurant, and the way the line was growing with more of them. Half of them were High School students, like herself, but she was sure the other half had to be graduates at least, if not in their early twenties.

Finally, there was a break in the tension of the room.

"Karin?"

Karin set her tea down on the table in front of her and turned her head back a little. She found a black haired boy with small eyes and soft features smiling at her over a bright red scarf. It took her only a moment to place his face.

"Benjiro?" she asked in amazement, should that actually be her old soccer pal.

"Ha, I knew it was you," he stated happily, "You haven't changed at all."

Karin got up from her seat and reached her arm out to her old friend. He immediately knew what to do. They grabbed each other's elbows, and instead of just shaking hands, they shook arms. "They same goes for you," she joked, reaching her other hand up to flick him on the forehead, "You still have that same stupid hair cut, I'm sure."

Benjiro took off the red hat he was wearing and smiled. "Sure do," he replied, "And you're still dressing like a boy it seems."

They released each others arms and Karin placed her hands on her hips. "You have an issue with how I dress, Benni-Boi?" she teased him, "I'm pretty sure I can still kick your butt, so I suggest you take a minute to think before you answer."

Benjiro laughed, "No problems here." He took a step back and held his hands out in the air. "It doesn't really matter if you dress like a boy, Karin," he shrugged, "You're not the same tomboy you used to be." In case she didn't catch what he was trying to insinuate, he made the hour-glass-shape with his hands.

Karin blushed for the second time in less than half an hour – wishing she had kept her coat on, rather than taking if off and leaving it in the booth when she and Toshiro had first sat down.

_Oh, right! _she suddenly realized, _I forgot about Toshiro! _

She turned back to their booth and motioned a hand over to Toshiro. "Benni, do you remember Toshiro?" she asked, "I know it's been a while…"

"Toshiro from the soccer game when we were in Elementary School?" Benjiro recalled, scanning over the white hair and teal eyes of the kid who had won them the soccer field for the rest of their Elementary School years. He held out a hand to Toshiro, "Yeah, I remember. Great to see you again."

Toshiro's expression was one of irritation – though why he was irritated, he had no idea. He raised an eyebrow at the strange kid, then took his outstretched hand and shook it. "My apologizes, but I can't seem to remember who you are," he lied. He knew exactly who this kid was. He was the one with the ridiculous small black Mohawk. When he was younger he had worn a red shirt with the words _DOPED DAVID _on it, and he always seemed to be at Karin's right hand.

"Yeah, well that's all right," Benjiro drew his hand back, "I was always more of a background player in comparison to Karin, here."

"Your flattery is nauseating as always," Karin commented, placing a hand on her childhood friend's shoulder. She always remembered him as being somewhat of a suck up.

Toshiro's irritation turned to capricious anger. Completely uncalled for. He narrowed glaring eyes at the hand Karin had on this guy's shoulder.

"So, Benni, do you wanna join us?" Karin offered. She wasn't even sure if she wanted one of her old friends hanging around in the little time she got to hang with Toshiro, but she figured it would be rude not to offer.

"Oh, I wish I could, but I have to go meet up with some friends of mine," he explained, "I was just passing by the window, and thought I'd come in to if it was really you."

Karin sighed. "Well, some other time then," she told him.

Benjiro nodded. It was clear he would be looking forward to it. "Sure, that'd be great. Hey, do you still live in Karakura?" he asked.

"Yeah," Karin answered, "Same address and everything."

"All right, well I'll stop by sometime if that's okay. We can catch up," he offered, "I'm sure tons of stuff has changed with you since Elementary School."

Karin smiled and nodded, "Sure. That sounds like a great idea. I'm curious to know what you've been up to as well."

Toshiro's hand clenched on his tea. Karin at last noticed the temperature of the room around them dropping significantly. She turned and threw Toshiro a look that conveyed something like _Hellooooo? Do you even notice what you're doing? _But he ignored her, his eyes on her friend.

"Okay, I guess I'll see you around then," Benjiro told her. The two of them linked arms again, then he turned and left, pulling his red hat back on as he was going out the door.

Karin sat down across from Toshiro, who didn't pull his glaring eyes away from Benjiro, until the vermin was far out of his line of vision. When he did, he refocused his glare on his tea.

"All right, what the heck was _that?" _she asked him, acid dripping from her voice.

Toshiro didn't look at her. His eyes flicked straight from his cup of tea to the window. "I don't know what you're talking about," he hissed through still clenched teeth.

"Toshiro," Karin called flatly. She waited for him to finally peel his gaze from the window and look over at her sideways. She picked up her cup of tea and flipped it upside-down. After tapping on the bottom a couple of times, her tea – now frozen into a solid cylinder of ice – landed on the table with a _THUD. _"Really?" she asked, condescendingly.

Taking a moment, Toshiro got his emotions back under control. He basically gathered them all up, shoved them into a little box in the back of his mind and locked it tight. Almost instantly, the temperature in the tea shop started to rise again.

"Oh my… Shut up!" Karin interrupted one exclamation with another. That moment Toshiro had taken for himself and his emotions was apparently all the time Karin needed to put two and two together. She dropped her voice and leaned forward, as if her next words were some big secret, _"You _were _jealous!" _

"I was not," Toshiro replied with disgust.

"You were too," Karin's voice was back to normal now. "Wow… The great Capitan Toshiro Hitsugaya _jealous _of an average mortal teenager," she laughed, "You know what? You were right. This jealousy thing is pretty funny." She continued laughing.

Toshiro narrowed his murderous eyes at her – the ones that could frighten a hollow – but she just brushed him off. "Oh, come off it Toshiro," she told him, "I was just having some fun."

"It's not funny," he argued, struggling to keep the lock on the box of emotions closed, "And I was _not _jealous."

"Yes you were…" Karin sighed, picking up another stick of Dango and biting one off. She started to wander into her own thoughts about the last couple moments, and after swallowing the Dango, she found herself just starting to randomly speak the thoughts a loud. "Though I don't see why… I mean, Benjiro's cute and all, but that's about it. Cute. Like a little brother cute. He's got nothing on you when it comes to good-looks…"

Toshiro blinked. Then that fleeting smirk of his showed up again. "Oh wow," he interrupted her, "Was that actually somewhat of a compliment?"

Karin bit off another piece of Dango and shrugged at him. She swallowed then replied flatly, "Maybe."

Going home wasn't as much fun to Karin as leaving had been, but the sun was starting to droop lower and lower into the sky, and she knew that if she didn't get back, eventually her dad would call the police or SWAT or something being the nutcase that he was.

Karin leaned her back against one of the giant train station pillars. All of a sudden, her back pocket started bleeping. Oh great. There he was _again. _

Over the course of the day, Karin had been getting an insane amount of text messages, calls and voicemails from not only her dad, but her brother and sister as well. They were all basically the same: _'Where are you?' 'Come home!' 'We're worried!' 'Is that no good Soul Reaper kid doing indecent things to you?' _

That last one seemed to be her dad's favorite. He'd sent it like, 16 times. Karin figured Ichigo had probably filled their dad in on Toshiro. Which meant her brother should start learning how to sleep with one eye open, because as soon as her ankle was better, the carrot-top was toast.

Anyway, Karin had been carefully hiding all the cell alerts from Toshiro. Only checking her messages in places like the bathroom, and when he went to get hot cocoa. She didn't want him catching her and asking about them, cause then she'd have to tell him, and he would have made her go home as soon as they stepped off the train earlier. He was just that kind of guy.

Whatever. It wasn't like she was ignoring her family. She kept answering their messages. Assuring them she was fine and all that. But she refused to tell them where she was. Only that she was safe and hanging out with Toshiro, (something her brother continued to argue was a lie, because according to him, Toshiro didn't 'hang out').

Well, they were on their way back now, so she figured it didn't really matter if she checked whatever new messages were bombarding her phone in front of Toshiro.

Stupid Karin, though, grabbed the phone out of her back pocket and flipped it open without realizing she had grabbed the wrong thing. This wasn't her phone. It was Toshiro's hollow-pager.

Oops.

"Hey! How did you get that?" Toshiro demanded to know, reaching for the pager.

Karin flipped the pager shut and moved it before Toshiro could get his hand on it. "I've had it all day," she told him, "You really hadn't noticed it was missing?"

"I knew it was missing," Toshiro made another grab for the device, but Karin still had it out of reach. Oh great. He was being bested by a mortal in a simple game of keep-away. "I just thought I left it in my pants back at your house," he explained.

Karin continued to hold the pager out of reach. "You sort of did…" she informed him, "It just… slipped out this morning while I was waiting for you to wake up."

"So you just took it?" Uh-oh. Toshiro was getting upset with her. This wasn't any fun anymore.

"It's dead anyway," she lied.

Toshiro called her out on her lie. "No it isn't," he argued, "I just charged it yesterday, before I went to play soccer with you. The charge is good for three days."

"Well, it's off… That's kind of like being dead…" Karin replied, not having a better argument kind of annoyed her, but whatever.

"Why did you turn it off?" Toshiro snapped, moving closer to her.

Okay. Toshiro was starting to scare her. Standing right in front of her like he was, Toshiro was a good 2 or 3 inches taller than her, and those glaring, angry turquoise eyes of his didn't help in not freaking her out. Not to mention, he was steadily raising his voice at her.

"Karin, you never _think!" _he snapped, closing the space between them even more, "People could have died today, because I wasn't on duty! Innocent people, Karin! Are you all right with that? Because you took my pager, I've been completely out of the loop when it comes to the hallows! Are you okay with all the innocent souls and innocent mortals that have probably died today?"

"Y-You didn't even know I had it!" Karin tried to fight back, but she wasn't feeling very confident. Especially since Toshiro had slowly backed her up against one of the train station platform pillars. "How would it be any different if you _had _actually left it at my house?" she snapped.

"It probably wouldn't if I had," Toshiro admitted, still furious, "But then those dead innocents would have been my responsibility – my burden. However, you taking my pager makes _you _the one responsible."

By this time a crowd had started to gather. Toshiro didn't notice – he was too busy focusing his attention on Karin. Karin felt her fingers starting to numb over with cold, even though they were covered with warm gloves. Toshiro was clearly very upset. She ducked her head and closed her eyes, preparing herself to get another round of guilt and anger thrown at her.

Much to both hers and Toshiro's surprise, however, they were interrupted. Some random stranger – a man who looked to be in his late 20's, early 30's – took it upon himself to step forward and place a hand on Toshiro's shoulder.

"Hey man, take it easy," he told Toshiro. His voice was both light and stern at the same time. Like… the voice of an overprotective father. "I don't know what you're arguing about," he mentioned, "But you're scaring the girl."

Toshiro had intended to turn his rage onto the man, but that last sentence stopped him. He blinked at the stranger a few times then slowly turned his head back to look at Karin. She was up against the pillar, with her eyes squeezed shut and her head down. She looked like she was expecting Toshiro to hit her.

A small gasp came from Toshiro as he reached this realization. Karin was… afraid of him? She thought… what? That he was going to harm her? Slowly, Toshiro took a step forward, out of the man's hold, reaching a hand up and placing it on one of Karin's shoulders.

She flinched away from his touch. Immediately, her eyes flew open and she hurled the pager at him, "You want this so damn bad, then here! Take it!" It hit Toshiro in the stomach then clattered to the ground, and Karin found herself running towards the open doors of the train that had just pulled up.

"Tch," Toshiro clenched his teeth in anger. "Karin!" he called, taking off after her, but she had already been swallowed in the crowd of mortal boarding the train. He had lost her.

Still, he boarded the train and stood uncomfortably mashed between mortals and constantly glancing around through the ride – looking for her. And it wasn't until over half an hour later that he finally remembered that he left the pager on the train platform.

_Great, _he thought sarcastically, _I'll just add that to the list of things I've lost today._

Eventually, the train passengers began to dwindle, until there were only about nine or ten in the car, including Toshiro himself, and the finally relocated Karin Kurosaki.

She was sitting on the other end of the train car, in one of the seats. She was hugging her knees, and keeping her heels balanced on the edge of her seat. Toshiro couldn't see her face, because it was buried into her knees, but he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to stomach the hurt he had inflicted in just the few words he had spoken in anger to her.

Way to go, Toshiro, he told himself, Way to mess up a perfectly fine day out.

He watched her from afar. Twice he gathered up the courage to go over to her, and twice he chickened out at the last moment – not knowing what he would say to her. So he stood uncomfortably on the other end of the train car, just observing her.

Finally, Karin's feet dropped off the chair and back onto the floor, revealing to Toshiro that she had in fact, fallen asleep.

Well that worked.

Toshiro swiftly made his way across the train car and carefully took the seat beside Karin. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the glass of the train window. Why was it so much easier for him to breathe when he knew Karin was safe?

More importantly… What had he done? He'd scared Karin such to the point where she actually thought he would hit her.

All they had ever seen of each other was the fun the two of them had when they played soccer together once a month. It really shouldn't have surprised Toshiro that Karin would get scared when she saw him like that.

He had always been vacant and inscrutable towards her during those games, but he had never been outwardly mean… like he had been today.

Karin suddenly stirred next to him. She rolled slightly to one side, and her head ended up resting on Toshiro's left shoulder.

Toshiro's eyes flew open and he froze for a moment, but when Karin didn't seem to wake up he relaxed again. He raised his head from the window and looked over at her. She was so peaceful when she slept – like a little doll.

And he had frightened this little doll. He had seriously scared her.

With regret in his eyes and guilt weighing down in his chest, Toshiro carefully slid his left hand over and placed it on top of Karin's, where it lay on the seat beside her leg. He squeezed it ever so gently. "I'm sorry, Karin…" he whispered.

"I know you are," Karin murmured, "Don't worry, I forgive you."

Toshiro jumped up out of the seat in surprise. "What the hell - ?" he exclaimed, "You were awake this whole time?"

Karin did the general actions of a person who just woke up. "Not so loud," she groaned, sitting up and stretching out her arms and back. "No…" she yawned and rubbed her right eye, which was having a harder time of opening than her already opened left eye, "I just woke up when I shifted onto your shoulder."

Toshiro facepalmed. It was completely immature and out of character for him, but at the present situation was completely acceptable.

Karin blinked as she gazed around the almost empty train car. "Jeez," she turned her attention to Toshiro, "We didn't miss our stop, did we?"

With a sigh, Toshiro turned around and slumped down on the floor in front of the seat he had been sitting in a moment ago. "No," he assured her, sounding completely drained, "We still have a ways to go, actually."

"Oh," she shifted once again – this time laying down on her right side across the seats behind Toshiro. She tucked her right arm under the side of her head as a pillow, leaving her left arm draped across her left side. "Well then… maybe I'll get some more sleep," she finished.

Toshiro sighed, "You are going to drive me to insanity, Karin Kurosaki."

Karin lifted her left hand up and started to absentmindedly play with the ends of Toshiro's crazy white hair in front of her. "Nah," she told him, "You're just all out of balance because someone actually caught you being nice."

"All right… Cut it out…" Toshiro turned his head to the side and swatted at Karin's hand gently, but missed when she pulled it away too quickly, "Weren't you going back to sleep or something?"

Karin's body seemed to think that was an appealing idea, and yawned. "Yeah, I guess," she murmured, letting her eyelids slowly fall, "Wake me up when we get there."

Toshiro didn't reply. He turned his head forward again and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to go to sleep or anything, but it was more comfortable to close his eyes and rest a bit.

That is, until Karin poked him in the back of the head and made his eyes fly open again. He shifted ever so slightly to look back at her from the corner of his eye.

"Hey," she called sternly, not even bothering to open her eyes again, "I'm serious. You better not just take off and leave me here on the train. You have a real knack for disappearing suddenly."

"I could say the same for you," he mentioned. He turned his head forward once again and closed his eyes. "It's a tempting idea… but no," he assured her, "I'm not going to leave you on the train. I'll wake you when we get to the stop."

"Good…" Karin murmured, already half-asleep again.

True to his word, when they had reached the Kurakawa Train Station, Toshiro woke Karin, and the two of them headed off the train, away from the station platform and into the dark night.

"Toshiro…" Karin finally spoke after they had been walking for a couple blocks.

Toshiro raised an eyebrow at her with a sideways glance, "Hm?"

"I just…" Karin's eyes remained on her feet as they walked along packed snow on the sidewalk, "… wanted you to know … that I meant what I said. I do forgive you."

Toshiro felt that uncomfortable burning high on his cheeks. "Y-Yeah… I know…" he muttered, turning his eyes away to look off in the opposite direction at absolutely nothing, "And I meant what I said. I am sorry for scaring you."

"Tch," Karin scoffed, folding her arms under her teen breasts, "Whatever. Startled me maybe, but you're not scary, Toshiro."

Toshiro rolled his eyes. The burning was gone almost immediately, of course. "You were scared, Karin," he informed her, "You don't have to admit it if you don't want to, but you were scared."

Karin turned her body towards him a little, so she was sort of walking sideways. "Don't you tell me who or what scares me," she snapped at him, "Just because you lost your temper for a moment there doesn't mean I'm gonna start cowering in front of you every- GAH!"

"Karin!" Toshiro exclaimed.

In trying to walk sideways, Karin's lame sprained ankle had somehow tripped her other good leg, and she stumbled forward. Perhaps if Toshiro hadn't been looking off into space, and instead been watching her, he could have easily grabbed her to stop her from falling.

But he had been staring off in the other direction, so by the time his head whipped around, and his eyes registered that Karin was falling, the only thing he could think to do was throw himself on his back, underneath her, so she landed on top of him.

Which she did.

"Ngh…" Karin lifted herself up on her arms, "Crap. I have got to stop ignoring the fact that I am currently somewhat handicapped."

"You're damn right you do!" Toshiro snapped. He propped himself up on his elbows beneath her and glared at her angrily, "Fuck Karin. I am seriously getting sick of coming to your rescue."

Karin's eyebrows slanted forward in her own glare. He was cursing again, so he was worried about her, but still! He didn't have to be an ass! He could just ask her if she was all right. "Then don't," she snapped back, "I never asked you to come to my rescue in the first place anyway!"

"What was I supposed to do?" he argued, stretching himself up farther – closer to her, "Let you fall in the snow?"

"Why not?" Karin fought back angrily, "At least the snow doesn't yell at me for landing on it!"

Toshiro's jaw tightened, "I'm not yelling at you for landing on me – it didn't even hurt! I'm yelling at you for not paying more attention to your well-being so that I don't have to worry about all the accidents you get yourself into when I'm not around help!"

"I don't need your help!" Karin exclaimed, "And I damn well don't need you worrying about me!"

"Well it doesn't work that way!" Toshiro was getting seriously pissed, but this time Karin wasn't backing down, "I'm going to worry about you whether I want to or not!"

Karin gritted her teeth. "Well knock it off!" she ordered, "Just because you're worried about me doesn't mean you get to be an ass to me in the little time I get to spend with you! I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. And I most certainly can handle a fall in the snow. So if you're going to get all angry with me every time you save me from something as simple as a stumble over a rock or a trip on the sidewalk, I'd rather you just didn't bother!"

Toshiro didn't answer. He simply stared at her. He was still glaring, but it seemed to be softening. She was so strong. He admired her for that in a way he had never admired anyone before. Plus… he was pleased she was safe. Well, safe enough to be yelling at him.

"What?" Karin demanded, "Nothing to say now? Is the shock of knowing that maybe there's someone in the world who doesn't need your protection too much for you? Good. I like you a lot better when you shut up anyway. I don't know what I was thinking trying to get you to open up and be normal for just one freaking day!"

"I could care less if you don't need my protection," Toshiro replied coldly, "And since when are you the final judge on who can be normal or not?"

"Pfft," Karin scoffed, she was still a little angry, but it was starting to settle a little. "You couldn't be normal if you life depended on it," her tone was practically challenging him.

So Toshiro did what he did when anyone challenged him. He met the challenge head-on.

"Whatever," Karin continued, "Like it matters to me whether or not- Mmf!"

All of a sudden, Karin found herself unable to lash out at Toshiro anymore… simply because… he was kissing her.

Yep. Toshiro was laying in the snow, propped up on his elbows. Karin was laying on top of him, with her gloved hands in the snow on each side of his body. And for some unknown reason, their cold lips were now pressed together.

Toshiro had initiated the kiss – and seemed to know what he was doing. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips firmer to Karin's, moving them along hers and waiting for her to respond.

It took a moment of frozen shock, but she finally did. Karin's eyes slowly closed, and her lips kissed him back. Her head tipped to the left, and his tipped to the right. Karin's mouth opened a fraction of an inch and Toshiro's icy breath swept into her mouth, along with his tongue. She opened her mouth a little more, letting him in and kissing him back pleased.

Toshiro's thought process was clouded. What the hell was he doing? He was kissing a human! What was wrong with him? He knew he needed to stop this… but it was hard. He had never wanted something as much as he just wanted to lay here in the snow kissing Karin.

Finally, though, his better judgment came back to him, and he pulled away from her sharply, turning his head to one side. His face was burning painfully and worse than it ever had before. Clearly, he was blushing.

"Normal enough for you?" he asked, unable to look at her after what he had just done.

Karin was about to answer - what she was about to answer with, she wasn't sure, but still - when a bit of bright red in the glow of a nearby streetlight caught her eye.

"Oh jeez!" she suddenly got off her arms and sat back. Her butt landed promptly in the snow, between the legs she had folded back on either side of her. "Toshiro, you're bleeding!" she told him.

"No I'm n-" Toshiro followed her eyes to the patch of red snow around the part of his arm near his wrist that wasn't covered by his blazer sleeve, and the decent sized gash on the arm itself, "Oh. Look at that."

He pushed himself up into a sitting position. Karin was situated on the ground between his open legs, and when he sat up he absentmindedly slid his knees farther up so they were at about the same level as her waist. He stared at the gash on the side of his wrist, as if willing it to close with sheer willpower would actually work.

Karin reached forward and grabbed his hand, gently pulling his wrist to her and pushing the blazer's sleeve out of the way so she could get a closer look at the wound. His eyes slowly made their way to look up at her concentrated expression. Why did she care? It was just a stupid little cut. It didn't even hurt.

"Okay," Karin said with a single nod. She looked up and around, her eyes finally stopping on the streetlight pole across the street. "Huh?" she was clearly surprised by something, "What is that?"

"Hm?" Toshiro followed her gaze over to the streetlight, "What? I don't see- Ah!" A suddenly pain on his arm caused his head to whirl back to her. "What was that?" he asked, astounded.

Karin held up a nice, jagged piece of glass about the length and size of three 500 yen coins. No wonder the gash looked so big, but didn't hurt. Well, now it hurt. Now that the glass was out and the blood was flowing. Toshiro took the chunk of bloody glass with his other hand, studying it with surprised eyes. The thing must have been hidden in the snow or something. It was amazing no one had stepped on it before then.

Reaching in her back pocket, Karin pulled out a clean, folded, white handkerchief. She stuck a corner in her mouth and tore off a piece, then repeated the action again and again until the square of white cloth became five, roughly equal-sized strips.

Toshiro discarded the glass and refocused his attention on Karin. She licked one of the strips and used it to clean the gash before quickly wrapping it up with the other strips. The gash was close to his wrist, but not on any arteries or veins – more off to the side – and therefore made it easy for Karin to tie the thin strips in place around his arm.

When at last Karin let go of Toshiro's arm, he eyed her make-shift bandaging. It was pretty well done, considering the circumstances, but still… "You didn't have to do that," he told her, "It would have healed fine on its own." To be honest, he probably wouldn't have even wasted the effort of the First Aid Kido on such an insignificant cut.

"Yeah, I know, I get it," Karin replied, irritated avoiding his eyes by looking down at his wrapped up arm, "You're a big strong Soul Reaper who doesn't have any need for human healing solutions. I didn't even mean to do it, okay? It's just… my family runs a clinic, so I just kind of did it out of built in habit."

Toshiro face was blank. He kept his head tipped down, like he was looking at his arms still, but his eyes moved up to Karin's frowning expression. "Well… thank you," he told her, not having anything else to say.

Karin blinked and looked at him. "Um…" it took her a couple seconds for her brain to remember what the proper response to 'thank you' was, "You're welcome, I guess."

Toshiro brought his head up to face the straight on and smirked. "You look cold," he commented on Karin's blue-ish lips and pink cheeks.

She felt cold. "Yeah," she breathed, her lack of steam that came from her mouth just further proved that she was so cold her breath was almost the same temperature as the Winter outside.

Toshiro pulled the blazer's sleeve down over the handkerchief bandaging ad he slowly got up to his feet. He offered Karin a hand, "Come on. Let's get you home."

With a sigh, Toshiro laid down on the thick, comfy bed mat he would be using for the night – sleeping on Karin Kurosaki's bedroom floor, donned in a pair of her older brother's blue, black and turquoise plaid Winter flannel pajamas.

How had he let himself get talked into this one?

_"You're leaving me?"_

_Toshiro blinked. That was a strange way to word the question. He wasn't even sure he could answer that with a statement, so he did so with a question, "Why do you sound so surprised?"_

_Karin was standing on the mat in front of her front door. The porch light was on and poured over herself and Toshiro, who stood in front of her. She couldn't believe that the time was gone. That he'd be leaving, and she wouldn't see him again for many months, when they eventually started up their soccer games again in Spring._

_"I just…" Shit. She didn't have any ideas on how to make him stay. "Oh… Well, it's kind of late..." she offered lamely, "So I thought… I don't know… Maybe you could spend the night and get some rest before you go back to the Soul Society."_

_Toshiro closed his eyes and raked a hand through his spiky white hair with a sigh. "I really shouldn't, Karin," he told her – unknowingly giving Karin a speck of hope when he said shouldn't rather that can't – "I've already overstayed my time in the World of the Living. I'm going to get in serious trouble if I don't head back soon." He dropped his hand and re-opened his eyes, catching Karin up in his turquoise gaze, "We both are."_

_"That's not true," Karin argued, taking a step forward. Maybe she was the one caught in Toshiro's gaze, but he still found himself unable to look away from her pleading black eyes. "I mean…" she dropped her voice just a little, "If you really overstayed your time, wouldn't they send someone to come get you? They obviously don't need you very much if they haven't even tried to contact you."_

_Toshiro was about to argue that his subordinates probably had tried to contact him, and that his lack of having his hollow pager was the reason they couldn't, but he was really tired of arguing with her. Besides… a comfy bed in the human world actually sounded nice right about now._

_"I'm not sleeping in your brother's closet," he murmured, joking. _

Oh right. He had given in.

Well, it wasn't like he was regretting that choice now. He was completely comfortable, and staying in the company of a girl he was coming to realize was quite close to his heart. It wasn't the worst way he'd ever spent a night.

"You are going to be the death of me, Karin Kurosaki," he told her – sitting on the bed beside his floor mat, doing a quick evening brush-through of her hair. She had already changed into a pair of long red drawstring pajama pants and a small form-fitting black shirt with ¾ length sleeves, brushed her teeth and gotten a good 25 minute lecture from her father and brother about disappearing and staying out so late.

Meanwhile, Toshiro snuck around and entered the house via Karin's window, where he waited for her to come up from being reprimanded. Incidentally, she brought up the mat and the pajama's when she came.

"First I was going to drive you to insanity, and now I'm going to kill you?" Karin asked, smiling, "Wow. You have this whole agenda set for me I had no idea of." She reached over to her bedside dresser and threw the brush in the middle drawer, then moved herself around on her bed so that she was laying on her back with her head hanging over the edge.

"All the blood's going to rush to your head if you stay like that," he changed the subject, "And if you faint, I'm going to have to take you downstairs to your father, and he'll find out I'm up here."

"Ugh," Karin rolled over and propped her head in her hands and her elbows on the edge of the bed to hold it up, "You're so annoying."

Toshiro sighed sharply and stood up. He started to unfasten the buttons of the flannel pajama shirt he was wearing.

"W-What are you doing?" Karin asked, sitting up.

"What does it look like?" he asked. After getting all the buttons undone he started to slide the shirt off.

Karin's mouth dropped – and not just because Toshiro was totally ripped – "You can't just walk around in my room half-naked!"

"It's hot," he stated, irritated, "I'm going to roast if I sit around in long sleeves and thick cotton." He pulled the shirt off and dropped it on the floor next to the mat, then sat back down cross-legged.

"Okay, I know you don't get cold," Karin sounded almost like she was trying to reason with him, "But seriously, how can you be hot? It's chilly in here."

"Maybe you should wear thicker clothes," Toshiro jabbed, his eyes wandering up the extent of Karin's bedtime ensemble.

Karin reached over and threw a pillow at him. He probably could have moved out of the way, but Toshiro didn't feel like moving, so he left the pillow hit him. "Or you could stop being such a freak," Karin replied.

"And just who are you to call me a freak, Spirit Girl?" Toshiro picked up the pillow with one hand and flung it back at her, hitting her dead in the chest and knocking her back onto the bed.

"Don't call me that!" Karin snapped, getting back up into a sitting position.

"Don't be so loud," Toshiro warned, "Your family will hear."

Karin didn't have a comeback for that one. He was right. Instead, she flopped down onto her side and let one arm dangle off the side of the bed in defeat. "You seem to have and issue with keeping your clothes on," she commented, "First you're lending me your jacket, now you walking around shirtless. Jeez. I don't even want to know what comes next."

What came next however, didn't come from Toshiro, it came from Karin. "Ech-choo," she sneezed, burying her face in her pillow for two more sneezes.

"What was that?" Toshiro asked, holding out each word longer than he needed too.

"Nothing," Karin muttered stubbornly into her pillow, though her eyes were on him.

"That was not nothing," he came off sounding a little cross without meaning too. He wondered why that was briefly. "That was a sneeze," he stated the obvious.

Karin buried her face in the pillow again. Oh crap. He was totally gonna find out!

"Karin," he called sternly, crawling up onto the bed beside her, "Are you ill?"

"No I'm not sick!" she snapped, keeping her face buried in the pillow and shifting away from him, towards her headboard.

"You've been out in the snow a lot these past few days," he mentioned, moving closer at the same time she was moving away, "Do you have a fever?"

"No," Karin's back hit the headboard, so she shifted to the left and tried to make her way back along the bed in the opposite direction. Anything to keep out of Toshiro's reach.

"You do, don't you?" he accused, following her along the bed with one hand reaching towards her head.

"No! I don't! I swear- Ack!"

Sliding backwards on the bed, Karin slipped off the edge and fell back onto Toshiro's temporary mat bed. It didn't hurt all that much, but it did make a loud THUMP!

Toshiro had to put a hand over his mouth to stifle his chuckles. "Are you-" he started, but then he had to stop and clear his throat, "-you okay?"

"Quit laughing!" she snapped, tossing the pillow at him while she attempted to get up.

Toshiro technically wasn't laughing, but still... he couldn't stop smirking at her falling off the bed. It wasn't like she had gotten hurt or anything, and with all the times she had hurt herself since the soccer game, he was glad to finally have one situation where he could inwardly laugh at her being an absentminded goof.

Still, he stopped smirking because it was upsetting Karin. "I'm not laughing," he mentioned, unable to contain the amused tone in his voice, "And besides, shouldn't we be worried? I'm willing bet your dad heard that thump."

"No, we're fine. That wasn't even that loud, since I landed on your mat," she told him. She grabbed the edge of the small dresser next to her bed and hoisted herself up.

Unfortunately, when she did so, the entire small bedside dresser tumbled forward. She moved just in time to avoid having her foot slammed underneath it, and flinched when it hit the ground.

Toshiro and Karin exchanged glances. Well, Toshiro's was more along the lines of an accusatory glare. Karin rubbed the back of her head and smiled a guilty, nervous smile at his expression. "O-kay... That he might have heard..."

"Oh really? You think so?" Toshiro snapped, already off the bed and picking up the dresser.

Karin grabbed the lamp that had been sitting on the dresser. Thankfully it hadn't broken when it landed on the mat. She placed it back on the dresser, then quickly helped Toshiro fold up the mat and stuff it into the bottom of her closet.

"Karin? Karin are you all right?" asked a voice on the other side of her door. Ichigo. He wiggled the doorknob a couple times, but found it locked. "Karin, I heard a crash. Are you in there?"

"Shit," she hissed under her breath. She turned to Toshiro, who was kneeling on the floor in front of her closet, right beside her. "We need to hide you somewhere, and fast!" she whispered, her eyes darting around the room, trying to find a spot.

"Go answer the door," Toshiro ordered, standing, "If you stall, Ichigo will get suspicious."

Karin raised an eyebrow at him, but gave no complaint. She got up and headed over to the door. She unlocked it, but when she glanced back at her room, Toshiro was gone. With a shrug, she opened the door for Ichigo.

"What do you want, carrot-top?" she asked with her usual sister-ly charm.

Ichigo came into the room, looking around questionably. "I heard something crash..." he repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in confused concentration, "I thought maybe..."

"Maybe...?" Karin repeated, wondering if the stupid carrot-top meant not to finish his sentence. She tried to keep him from noticing the way she was scanning her room - from which Toshiro seemed to have vanished.

Ichigo shook his head. "No. No way. If Toshiro were here I'd feel at least something of his spiritual pressure I'm sure," he murmured; talking more to himself than his younger sister.

Karin folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "You thought I was hiding Toshiro up here?" she asked, trying to make it sound like the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

And she had almost convinced him. Until Ichigo caught sight of something hiding only halfway beneath Karin's bed. He went over and bent down to pick it up. "Why do you have my pajama shirt?" he asked, catching on to her little ruse.

"I...uh..." Crap. She didn't have anything for that. She glared at the garment in Ichigo's hand for a moment, then composed herself well enough to give him a simple shrug and a pretty good excuse, "Yuzu put it in my pajama drawer on accident."

"Is that so?" Ichigo asked, making Karin feel uneasy and completely see through, "Then where are the bottoms?"

Karin swallowed. Come on girl, think of something! "They're... I already wore them," she said, changing her mind and making her story that much less believable, "That is... I didn't want to wear the long sleeves, but I wore the pajama pants and now they're in the dirty clothes... Yeah."

Ichigo looked at her disbelievingly, but before he got the chance to say anything a loud, obnoxious song of some kind came ringing down the hallway. Karin was doing back flips on the inside. It was Ichigo's cell phone! And it was down the hall in his room!

With only a second glance around the room, Ichigo gave Karin a brief nod and headed out of her room. Simple as that. Karin closed the door behind him, then turned and leaned against the back of it, sliding down until she was sitting on the ground. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, she nearly had a heart attack.

"What is with this town?" Toshiro asked. He looked pretty hilarious standing by the window in pajama pants - feet and chest both bare - brushing piles of snow off his head and shoulders. "Does it ever stop snowing?" he asked, shaking snow and water out on Karin's floor.

With a sigh, Karin got up from the floor and went to her closet. She was pretty sure she had some towels somewhere on the top shelf... Oh. Yep. She took two of the stack of four white towels. After tossing one onto Toshiro's head, she got down and mopped up the water he left all over the floor.

"I never imagined you would complain about snow, Toshiro," she commented.

Toshiro used the towel she had given him to dry his hair off the best her could as he went over and took a seat on the edge of Karin's bed.

Karin went over to the empty hamper in the corner of her bedroom that she was quite pleased Ichigo hadn't noticed, and tossed in the wet towel she had used to clean up the floor. When she turned back, she was instantly blinded by the towel Toshiro threw across the room and hit her square in the face with. With some sort of irritated half-growl in the back of her throat, Karin tossed the second towel in after that first and turned to glare at Toshiro, who was stretching himself out on her bed.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" she asked, appalled that he could just lay there with his hands tucked under his head like he was relaxing in a hammock rather than coveting her bed!

"Just resting my eyes for a minute. Hiding my spiritual pressure to such an extent that Ichigo wouldn't sense me hiding on the roof was exhausting," he told her, his eyebrows slanted forward as they always were. Karin found it funny that even when he was relaxing he still looked angry enough to suddenly leap up and kill someone.

And with that imaginative thought in mind, Karin took a small half-step away from her bed and replied, "Yeah, well it looks like we got lucky that someone called Ichigo's cell."

"Luck had nothing to do with it..." Toshiro murmured, sounding like he was dozing off.

Karin blinked, "How did you-?"

"Nevermind," Toshiro told her. Clearly his minute-rest was up, since he sat up, turned, and lightly got off her bed. He went over to the closet to pull out the floor mat while Karin climbed up onto her bed.

Her hand touched the spot where Toshiro had just been laying. It was really cold. She glanced over at Toshiro's back - still crouched in front of her closet, then leaned down and buried her warm, red face in her freezing pillow.

There was some shuffling as Toshiro pulled out the mat and set it back up on the floor beside Karin's bed. Then the shuffling stopped and Toshiro called her name. With an irritated groan from having to leave her nice cold pillow, Karin drew herself up to be sitting up, back on her feet. She raised an eyebrow at the Soul Reaper standing about three feet away from her.

"Question," he pointed to the wall behind her, "What is that?"

Karin looked behind her, but when she found nothing she turned back, "I don't se- Eeep!"

"Ah, so you are ill."

Toshiro was a lot closer than three feet now. In fact, he was less than 12 inches, and he had his palm firmly pressed against her forehead. Not that she was complaining. She almost moaned from the pleasure of his freezing touch on her warm face. Luckily, she got her head back together before she could carry out such an embarrassing act.

She smacked his hand away. "You tricked me!" she snapped, "And I'm not sick, you're just freezing!"

Toshiro climbed up onto her bed and sat beside her a little too close for her comfort. Still, she didn't move away. She hadn't noticed it until Ichigo had showed up, but her room was really hot without Toshiro around. He was like a walking, talking air conditioner on a burning hot day. It was nice.

"Well, now we're even," he explained, referring to back in the snow when she had distracted him so she could pull out the glass in his arm.

Back in the snow… Karin didn't think her face could get any hotter, but apparently she was wrong. And it was really starting to hurt. She hoped she wasn't getting a migraine or something.

"Karin?" Toshiro was getting worried now – like, on the verge of swearing again, worried. Karin's face was getting redder, and the heat radiating off of her was actually making him a little woozy. He reached a hand forward and placed it on her forehead again, resisting a wince when he did so.

Karin reached up and brushed his hand away again, but weaker this time. "I'm not sick. Stop worrying about me," she sounded like a General giving orders.

Toshiro was good with orders. Well, with giving them. Not so much the other way around. His eyebrows slanted forward, his mouth set into a tight frown and his eyes locked onto Karin, "Shut up already, will you?"

"Wha-?" Karin did her best to look at him, despite her wincing from a severe headache she now had.

"Shut up," he told her, "Look, I get it, okay? You're Karin Kurosaki, little sister of the great Ichigo Kurosaki, and because of that you want to stand on your own two feet like your brother. I get that you don't want to lean on anyone or ask anyone for help, and I get that you don't want me worrying about you because we don't get to spend a lot of time together, and you just want our little bits of time to be simple and easy and… I don't know… fun, I guess."

With a deep breath, Toshiro suddenly shot out and wrapped his arms around Karin, pulling her towards him. Her burning face instantly started to feel better pressed against Toshiro's freezing chest. "But for once…" he kept his voice low, but loud enough not to be a whisper, "Just shut up and let me help you."

"You've been helping me all day," she muttered, irritated.

Toshiro sighed, "Clearly, you do not understand the concept of 'shut up', Kurosaki."

Karin turned her face slightly to cool another side. She smiled, "Clearly."

Toshiro didn't sleep on the mat, even though they had gone through all the trouble of getting it upstairs, hiding it and bringing it back out again. Whatever. Like he cared. Karin's bed was more comfortable anyway.

"Do you remember after that first game together?"

He glanced down at the top of Karin's head, which was resting on his chest. Her fever had dropped exponentially, and for that he was glad, but still… They were kind of comfortable laying on top of her bed together. He had his head resting on her pillow, with one hand tucked under the pillow and his head, and the other hand laying on the bed beside Karin – who was completely tucked in with the blanket he was supposed to use that night with the mat.

That first game… he thought, staring at the ceiling, "I was shorter than you then."

Karin rolled her eyes beneath her closed eyelids. Typical Toshiro. Of course that's what he would remember first. "But after it…" she murmured, "When you were getting ready to leave with Rangiku…"

"After you called me an Elementary student? Or was it a little kid?" Toshiro shrugged slightly, "Something like that."

"Yeah," Karin's voice was light, like she wanted to laugh, but was too tired, "I told you to come by some time so we could play soccer again."

"If I'm recalling this correctly, I said, 'No,'" Toshiro replied, confused as to why she would want to bring up something unpleasant at a time like this.

Karin nodded against his skin, "Yeah… But you didn't leave the mortal world…"

"I wasn't ordered to return to the Soul Society then," he explained. She didn't really think he stuck around this human dump five years ago just to hang around with her, did she?

"You came to Urahara's shop," she reminded him, "I was playing with Jinta and Ururu."

Toshiro remembered that part. She had nearly taken him out with a baseball, but he had simply stepped to one side and let it whiz past. Then she came running over to him to say 'Hi'. It had been totally normal until Urahara had started making snide comments about him liking Karin – not only because she was a human, but because she was Ichigo's little sister as well.

"I asked if you wanted to verse me in soccer," she continued.

Toshiro frowned. "I still said, 'No'," he said tersely. Man, now that he was thinking about it, he was kind of a dickhead to her back then.

"It was okay. You were busy with Soul Reaper stuff. I didn't take it personally," she told him, hearing the tightness of his voice, and the regret trickling from the edges of his tone, "And besides, I found you later, remember?"

He had gone back to the soccer field late that night he saw her at Urahara's shop. It had been two days since their soccer game and he was just stopping by to make sure no other hollows had come out the way the Menos had. "I found you," he corrected, "You were practicing all alone in the twilight."

"And I challenged you to a game."

"Not much of a challenge."

"You still played."

"I had some free time on my hands."

Karin sighed. "Still," she continued, no interested in arguing with him, "It was… fun…"

Toshiro could tell Karin was beginning to nod off. Maybe he should just stop talking and let her sleep? They had had one busy day after all… But still… He had to ask…

"Karin… Do you love me?"

Toshiro had never been so emotional. In fact, even then he was actually frightened to hear what she would say. He held his breath and bit his tongue - instantly regretting the words after they had left his mouth.

What did it matter what her answer was anyway? It wasn't like… It wasn't like they could ever be together. There were rules. He had duties. It was all too complicated.

They had this one day of normalcy, but that wasn't how the world worked. The world wasn't all running away on trains and goofing off all day. The world was cruel and harsh and couldn't be changed - even with the best of intentions.

There were several long moments of Toshiro waiting before he suddenly started chuckling low in his throat. He tried to keep it down, but it was just too funny.

Karin was asleep. Toshiro had just asked one of the biggest questions a guy could ask… and she was asleep.

It was pretty hysterical from where he lay.

Where he lay… Hm. Toshiro tilted his head down slightly, watching Karin breathing. Every breath was her sustaining her life, while every second breathing ticked the clock down closer and closer to death. It was kind of ironic.

Without thinking, Toshiro lifted his hand up to her hair and picked up a strand. He just kind of held it in his hand, messing with it. He didn't know why, (though he had a sneaking suspicion it was something he had seen on one of the gooey romance movies MoMo had made him watch at some point), but it entertained him.

In fact, all of Karin entertained him. From the first moment he met her, all through their once-a-month games, all through the 5 years he had been coming to see her in the real world, all through this time they had spent together, and even now… she entertained him. She made him laugh - a feat rarely accomplished by only a select few.

She entertained him…

Her stubbornness. Her hard work. Her being clueless. Her intelligence. Her weakness. Her strength. Her disregard for her safety. Her protectiveness of others. Her mistrust of strangers. Her love for her family. Her jealousy. Her kindness. Her wrath. Her outspokenness.

… just by being human.

And what a strange thing it was to be in love with a human.

"Huh? Oh, Capitan! You're back!"

Toshiro felt all his hair stand on end the minute he walked through the door of the 10th Division meeting room. He had been expecting to get called to stand before the Central 46, so he silently panicked every time someone said his name or spoke to him. It was still early, and his nerves were already fried.

He sighed, forcing himself to relax, "Hello Rangiku. I trust all was well while I was gone?"

She nodded a few too many times, "But of course, Capitan! Nothing but work and more work. All pretty boring around here." She set down a stack of papers on his desk and clapped her hands together like she was dusting something off of them, "How was your trip to the World of the Living?"

"Fine," he brushed her off, heading for his desk and the mountain of paperwork that had accumulated while he was gone. He resisted the urge to groan. He had never had any issue with paperwork, but this was a bit much for being gone only one extra day. "My business… took a little longer than expected," he murmured, picking up a paper to read.

Matsumoto closed her eyes and nodded three times in agreement. "Well that's fine, sir," she told him, re-opening her eyes, "I covered for you."

Toshiro blinked in surprise and turned to look over at her with one eyebrow raised. "You…?" he began, but changed his mind and instead asked, "But why?"

She shrugged as if it were no big deal that she had put her ass on the line to protect his. She had made herself an accessory for what he could be tried for as treason, and she didn't seem to care in the least. "You're my Capitan, sir," she said simply, "I'll always be there for you."

Toshiro's expression went flat. What a load of crap. "Uh-huh…" he said, holding up the paper in his hand, "And the fact that you have done absolutely no paperwork the entire time I was gone has nothing to do with it, right?"

"Capitan!" Rangiku gasped, attempting to feign shock, "I'm surprised at you! How could you think I would stoop so low?"

With a roll of his eyes, Toshiro placed the paper back on one of the stacks. He had finally figured out why there was so much damn paperwork and she was standing there trying to pretend like she didn't know what he was talking about. "Sucking up so you don't have to do paper sounds exactly like you!" he snapped.

Matsumoto nibbled on her lower lip. He had her there. "Hm…" she raised a closed fist to tap on her chin softly for a moment while she thought, "Okay then I guess I'll have to change tactics."

"To what?" Toshiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

She responded with another one of her nonchalant shrugs, "Blackmail."

"Tch," Capitan Toshiro scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, "And just what do you think you have to use against me as blackmail?"

"Ichigo called."

Toshiro stiffened. Every muscle locked together and threatened to keep him trapped in place for the rest of his life - however long that life may or may not be.

"He was practically insane," she went on, a smile spreading across her face when she noticed the temperature of the air drop a few degrees, "Screaming all these things about having you beheaded. Something about you kidnapping and raping his sister…?"

Toshiro didn't want to say anything. He didn't want Matsumoto thinking anything less of his authority by thinking that she had gotten to him. But it was too late. Before he could stop himself he was rushing through an explanation like a 10 year old trying to avoid getting spanked, "I didn't do any of that! If anything, she kidnapped me! And all we did was kiss - which Ichigo doesn't even know about. Besides she- Wait. Where the hell are you going?"

Rangiku had started walking away after 'I didn't do any of that!' because, (if it wasn't already obvious), she had won this round. Which mad her feel pretty good, considering it was the first time she had won anything against her Capitan in over a decade.

She stopped and turned back slightly, jutting a thumb at the hallway through the open sliding door. "I was gonna head over to the hot springs," she told him with a smile, "You're welcome to join me as soon as you're done with the paperwork, Capitan."

"And just what makes you think I'm going to do all of your paperwork?" he snapped, unfolding his arms and slamming one hand down on an oh-so-small area of his desk not covered with paper, "Just who the hell do you think is the Capitan here?"

Rangiku placed one hand on her hip, using the other hand to wave a finger around in the air as she spoke, "Why, you are, Capitan! But apparently you're the Capitan with some dirty little secrets, and you know how bad I am at keeping secrets."

The two of them held each others eyes for a long moment. Toshiro with fury blazing in his irises and Rangiku just… being Rangiku. Finally, it was Toshiro who caved. He looked down and to the side, muttering what sounded like swear words in at least four different languages.

"See ya later, Capitan!" Rangiku bid him farewell and disappeared out the door.

Toshiro sighed with exhaustion. Emotionally, physically, mentally… These past couple days had completely drained him. "Women," he scoffed, yanking his chair out from his desk.

But just as Toshiro was about to sit down, he noticed something odd. All the space beneath his desk was also filled with stacks and stacks… of… paperwork…

_"MATSUMOTO!" _

**END**

_Author's Notes:_

__My best friend is extremely overprotective of not only me, but his two little sisters and his mother as well. He's a really sweet guy sometimes, but most of the time he's so busy being the man of the house - the big protector - that he often forgets to just be a teenager. His big thing is that he gathers all his emotions up and stuffs them into a box in the back of his mind so he won't get distracted by them.  
But he is SUPER CUTE when his emotions get away from him. Anytime I'm late to meet him or I hurt myself or anything, he gets really worried. He always swears when he's worried - regardless of whether he's actually mad or not.  
A year after I had to move away from Sebastien, (dont worry, we still keep in touch the best we can), I stumbled over Bleach and fell hard for Toshiro Hitsugaya. LoL. It wasn't until I hit episode 132 that I realized it's because Sebastien is just like him.

So if Toshiro seems a little OOC in this FanFic, it's because he's only 80% Toshiro, and 20% Sebastien.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Heh... Funny thing about the title. '_Journey'_ comes from two things.

The band _'Journey'_ and their song _Don't Stop Believin'_ because that song was the inspiration for this OneShot.

And also from the saying _'It's not about the destination, it's about the Journey...'_ which also had a little part in this. You know, given that Karin fell asleep before Hitsugaya asked that big important question - therefore, they're still in the midst of their Journey and have yet to reach their destination.

I know. I'm so totally deep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~_  
_


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